It’s not always easy to pinpoint the genesis of an obsession, but this one is pin-pointable: summer 2009. That summer, the Livermore Shakespeare Festival produced A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Concannon Vineyard. The costume designer decided on a steam punk theme for the fairies’ costumes and sent out a call to all of us in the company to save pop tabs for her, pop tabs she would use to make the fairies’ jewelry and decorate their costumes. My daughter, Karen, who is also a member of the company, mentioned that one of her coworkers collects pop tabs. Collects pop tabs. Ah, yes. Of course.
Karen’s friend, Kathy Hampel, the pop tab collector, was willing to donate as many pop tabs as needed. She had boxes of them. We were all grateful and agreed to collect pop tabs to repay Kathy for her kindness without a thought as to what that might mean.
We started by simply breaking off the tabs before recycling aluminum cans. We don’t use too many of them at our house, but we soon started buying anything we could in aluminum cans instead of bottles so we could get the tabs – V-8 juice (me), diet soda (husband Neil and Karen). Then we started noticing an occasional aluminum can in a gutter or thrown against a building. Grabbed it and retrieved the tab. Touring a theater complex, we saw some cans in a field left over from workers’ lunches. Grabbed them and retrieved the tabs. We mentioned to our friends that we were collecting pop tabs, and they began saving them as well. When Neil has his Monday lunch get-together with the guys, his friends often bring a handful of pop tabs they’ve saved.
When we go for our walks, we peer into garbage cans in the parks; when we find aluminum cans we grab them and retrieve the tabs. One day, we passed a truck parked in front of a neighbor’s house. The little side slot in the side of the truck bed was filled with aluminum cans! Our fingers were itching – but we didn’t see the owner to ask permission so had to let them go. Sometimes on recycling days we’ll find cans in the gutter or street that the recycling truck leaked. The other day, Neil came upon a brown paper bag on a picnic table. He looked in the bag. It held a 12-pack of Bud, empty cans (all but one). So he grabbed and retrieved 11 pop tabs! Bonanza! It’s all we can do to keep from leaping out of the car on freeway approaches when we see cans lying in the weeds. We keep our eyes peeled for pop tabs on the street, in parking lots, wherever we are. It’s an obsession, an addiction, a frenzy.
So what do we do with them? Well – we pass our collection along to Karen who turns them in to her coworker, Kathy. As it turns out, Kathy belongs to an exclusive Airstream recreational vehicle owners club whose members gather for an international rally somewhere in the U.S. each summer, and club members perform community service projects. One of these is supporting the Ronald McDonald House Charity, an international organization that supports the families of children receiving medical treatment. And one of the ways to support RMHC is to donate collections of pop tabs (all explained on the RMHC website at http://rmhc.org/how-you-can-help/pop-tab-collections/). Those little tabs can make a difference. Last year, Kathy’s club collected 1628 pounds (!) of pop tabs and donated $300 to RMHC. One RMHC chapter in the midwest raises $30,000 a year through its pop tab program.
If you’d like to join in, send us your tabs. And if you should see a hoary-headed (see Post #2) couple rummaging in trash bins, the situation may not be as dire as it appears. We’re just looking for pop tabs.
No comments:
Post a Comment